America should not have any homeless people; but she does.

Therefore, there must be something wrong with America's organization or system. Right?

That's the gist of the argument periodically put forth not only by utopian idealists, but by all compassionate people. Of course there should be no homeless people. But history shows that dealing with any
problem by instituting some grand social plan is destined to produce
something nearly the opposite of the intention of the plan.

There have always been derelicts and vagrants, and not only in
America. In some countries they hide better, and in some they outnumber
everybody else. Here, it used to be against the law to be a vagrant,
variously defined as someone in the neighborhood who didn't live there
and didn't work there and who had less than five dollars in his pocket.
Local cops would keep an eye on them, keep them moving, or escort them
to the county line. Then, those laws were dis-established
because it was felt by the compassionate that these people were being
mistreated, and perhaps they were. At any rate, they suddenly became a
whole lot more visible, and became open panhandlers, and some even
became belligerent and aggressive about it.

A long time ago, an old Op-Ed writer named Mike Royko (R.I.P.)
wrote about such things, and about how the "bleeding hearts" who, in
seriously trying to make things better, made things worse. While I
didn't always agree with Mike, I always followed his columns, and
they always provided serious food for thought. Much of the following
is paraphrasing some of his more thought provoking pieces.

One thing he wrote, that I call Royko's Rule lays out a beautifully illustrative analogy story. It is the story of the needed winter overcoat. The principle at play here is a very old one.

In a free market, if you need an overcoat, you have a lot of
choices. You can go to an exclusive store and pay $500 for a very nice
one; if you shop carefully among the fancy stores, you might even find a
better one for $400. Either will keep you nice and warm on a cold day.
But if you can’t afford those prices, you can still get a pretty good
one for around a hundred bucks at Sears or J. C. Penney’s. And if
that’s still too high, you can go to K-Mart or Wal-Mart and still get a
very decent, warm coat for less than fifty bucks; maybe even less than
thirty. Quite a difference in price, but still a pretty good coat. But
if you can’t even handle that, you still have options available; there
are flea markets and second-hand stores, where you might find one for
less than ten bucks. There are Salvation Army and Good Will and St. Vincent DePaul
stores where you might get one for fifty cents; there are Churches and
charities where, if your timing is right, you might get one for free.

Such overcoats might leave a lot to be desired; they may be torn, or
patched, or have a missing button, or they might just be pretty ugly,
but they are still overcoats, and will satisfy that need. But if a well
intentioned powerful liberal thinks that such an unsightly overcoat is
unworthy of adorning a human being, and therefore institutes government
unsightly overcoat controls, all the cheap or free coats disappear out
of the legal market. If your income hasn’t changed, that means that
your tacky overcoat is replaced with - no overcoat. And it’s
still cold outside. The powerful liberal thought, quite typically, that
a better grade of equally cheap overcoat would just go, poof, and
magically appear in the marketplace, but it didn’t. Now we have people
who have no overcoats or prospects for getting any. Of course, this is
hypothetical, we don’t yet have overcoat controls, and it’s just a Royko illustration of a point. It's an analogy.

Now, apply Royko's Rule to housing, and you see what
happened to what we used to call “flop houses” years ago. You don’t see
them anymore; mostly you just see homeless people. It was the bottom
end of the housing market, sort of like our 50 cent overcoat; you could
get a room for a quarter a night. Nothing much there; maybe a
urine-stained mattress on the floor, pretty bad place, largely populated
by drunks. Vermin, and stuff you don’t really want to think about;
certainly not up to code, and an outright fire trap. But it was a place; it was shelter.

After Urban Renewal, and liberal rules against any such dwelling places, they were replaced with - well, with the great outdoors.
Flop houses were terrible places, but the streets are worse,
especially in the winter. The market niche for this type of housing,
the old time skid-row neighborhoods, have been or are being
systematically eliminated from urban areas, but the clientele
still exist, and they still can’t afford anything better, despite the
horrified sensibilities of the outraged liberals who can’t stand the
sight of sub-par, sub-code, unhealthy, unclean, unsafe housing. Another well intentioned plan to uplift the poor ultimately kicked them in the teeth.

And then we had the de-institutionalizing movement several
years back. You remember, the compassionate cry was that there were so
very many people in mental institutions who were deemed to be not dangerous and yet who were not voluntarily institutionalized. "Someone" had then committed for their own good; but now, with new legislation in effect, they needed to be asked if they chose
to remain in the mental institution. For the most part, their symptoms
were controlled by specific medications in the institutions. Untold thousands were released, and told to keep taking their medication, and to come back regularly for outpatient treatment.

Guess where they went? Many of them went out on the street. Many of them did not take their medicine as they should, and did not
keep their outpatient appointments, and their illness symptoms returned
with a vengeance. But, their illness was legally deemed as medicinally
controllable, they didn't want to be in an institution, and
therefore no one could put them into one any more. So, the numbers on
the streets multiplied, as they joined the ranks of the counter-culture underclass, previously populated mostly by drunks, addicts and minor criminals. Of course, it was all done with the best of intentions.

We can apply Royko’s Rule to food, too. I hesitate to
write about it for fear that a liberal or the FDA or some stupid
bureaucrat might self righteously pursue the subject to its death. But,
right now, we can still buy day-old baked goods, and food at volume
prices at any of the so-called warehouse-clubs; we can buy “generic”
food on an as-available basis from discount stores and even flea markets
at terrific savings; dented, damaged looking cans are a special buy.
Even perishable food with slightly expired dates are available at
further discounts; expired labels and dented cans still sometimes equate
to food, as opposed to hunger, regardless of any outraged liberal
sensibilities.

Low paying sub minimum wage jobs are pretty much the same. What
are they better than? Well, how about increased poverty combined with
Idleness. Royko’s Rule applies; from the employee’s viewpoint, a
lousy job is always better than no job at all, regardless of the well
intentioned liberal viewpoint. And minimum wage laws inevitably
increase lowest wage unemployment, and misery.

The liberal, pro-labor, pro minimum wage
SLIMC1
, of course, likes to periodically stir up controversy, sensationalism, ratings and profits by “exposing” some clothing vendor or other who claims to be selling American stuff, but in actuality is selling stuff made in Asian countries under sub-par working conditions by people making sub-par wages, or even in China, by socio-economic slaves.

But they also periodically increase their ratings and profits by
sensationally exposing illegal American sweat shops, often involved with
both illegal and legal aliens being “victimized” by unscrupulous
employers. Which periodically proves that a very large sub minimum wage
marketplace exists right here in America, and is not allowed by law to
compete legally with the Asian and other foreign labor forces for the
same work. God forbid we should ever see the natural prices of anything
actually ever go down. Or actually have businesses encouraged to
openly and publicly seek to competitively employ as many of the poorest
among us as they can possibly attract at a legal, competitive, but sub
minimum wage.

Better, in the liberal view, to somehow force the competing
nations to impose similar minimum wages, and send violators on both
sides of the ocean to prison, and put them out of business for good.
They really, actually do not realize that this would contribute mightily
to increased misery and starvation.

Free market controls on either wages or prices of anything are
naturally and automatically destined to fail miserably. Such controls
can succeed only with such increased numbers and complexities and
inclusiveness of new controls as to preclude the continued existence of
the free market. Let’s just take one small part of such controls, a
government imposed minimum wage law, as an example.

At first glance we all sympathetically feel that no one should be
made to work for a paltry wage, and in truth no one should. Therefore
we pass a minimum wage law, and everybody at the lower end of the
national labor force gets a raise. Very nice. However, the businesses
that are mandated, required by the new law, to pay these raises thereby
suffer, at the very least, less profits. In some cases, profit is
reduced, in some, profits disappear and the business goes into a “break
even” mode, and in some, the bottom line goes negative - a loss. So
business has to change. Either the prices for the product or service
will go up to accommodate the increased labor expense, or some other
expenses will have to be cut, or some minimum wage workers will have to
become unemployed, meaning fewer workers will need to do more work.

So, at least in some cases minimum wages went up, but so did
unemployment, solely among those who can least afford to be unemployed
for any period of time. A small price to pay for an economic
improvement for the majority who remained employed, we might think. But
once established, it is inevitable that such controls: 1. never
disappear, and 2. grow. Minimum wages, and other government
regulation, are today nearly the sole cause of teen unemployment in
America today.

Before outlandish minimum wage laws school kids pumped gas and
flipped burgers in their spare time rather than getting into trouble.
They even mowed grass and shoveled snow before the idiotic government
requirement for their customers to pay into their Social Security if
they made over $250 in a year, for doing anything at all. You may
safely bet your sweet butt that the government jerk who dreamed that one
up is either rich or doesn’t get hay fever. So now most American
teenagers mostly just hang out, practice hand-shakes and gang-signs, or
watch TV. McJobs have become very competitive, because at those
“minimum” rates the employers will only select from the very best
applicants. The naive belief that all the employer has to do is raise
prices is so clearly and obviously flawed that it is truly remarkable
that it can’t even be recognized by an ex-President - Rhodes scholar
with a supposedly intellectual wife.

Liberals think that the problem is self-solving because all
employers are in the same boat, and all will be forced to raise their
prices to pay for the increased wages, and so competition between them
remains the same. But it just doesn't work that way, because at some
point in the spiraling prices the customers will seek alternatives, the
businessmen know that, and they will automate or otherwise cut
employment to prevent it from happening. Those who don’t’ will go out
of business, or out of the one they’re in and into another one.

I already mow my own grass, thanks to the government jerks. When
the price of burgers gets too high at the fast food chain, I can start
flipping my own burgers at home a whole lot cheaper, so long as we don’t
yet have government imposed frying pan or spatula or hamburger
controls. When the cost of a car wash gets too high, I can wash my own
car a whole lot cheaper, so long as we don’t yet have government imposed
garden hose, or bucket, or sponge controls. I’m not going to pay a big
price for a glass of wine with my dinner. Period. First, imports are
available. Second, if imports are taxed out of the market, I can buy a
wine press and make my own wine, until the government controls grapes
and wine presses. Even then, I can grow my own grapes in my own back
yard, and use a more ancient method: the family feet in the family
bathtub.

If the government gets ridiculous about it (No!), I can give up on
wine with dinner altogether. I’m still not going to pay a big price for
a glass of wine with my dinner. I am the sovereign consumer. The
point at which we each would either do-it-ourselves or do without it
varies considerably, but most of us will sooner or later hit a point
where we will say “I am not going to pay $X for a car wash” or “ I am
not going to pay $Y for a burger and fries.” It would be very nice if
everyone in the world made at least 20 or 30 or 40 thousand bucks a
year, but that ain’t gonna happen. Face it. Look around at the fully
automated car washes, and at the numbers of idle kids who could use an
honest few bucks, and at the unemployed recent immigrants and other poor
who would willingly work at anything, and tell yourself that they are
somehow better off because of an eternally increasing minimum wage.

Royko's Rule applies here, too. Paltry wages are always, always
preferable to no wages at all. There is, always has been and always will be a huge market for low paying work. No one has to work for paltry wages,
but lots of people are quite willing to, but are not allowed to,
legally. Illegal sweat shops and illegal migrant worker practices prove
it every single day.

When you talk to many segments of the idle American young, like
California’s Crips and Bloods, you’ll hear them say that they “don’t
work for no chump change” and they “don’t want no McJobs.” Fine; no
problem. But lots of other people do, and they should not be prevented
from working nor should they be economically forced into illegal labor
markets just to survive. That’s not what America is supposed to be
about. The Crips and the Bloods can hold out for the next available
chief executive officer openings. But lots of Americans would prefer to
have their cars hand-washed than machine washed, and it is possible, in
the absence of a minimum wage, for a hand-wash shop to out-cheap the
automatics. A potential new market at the bottom, where most new
immigrants begin, and potential first jobs for teens. But so long as
government mandated minimum wages exist, our teenagers will be largely
unemployed, and the poor will continue to work and be paid “under the
table” when the government and the IRS isn’t looking.

Real life practical economics always out-maneuver government
regulations, but Liberal government is bound and determined to
out-regulate the maneuver-ers, and they always wind up further injuring
the free market, and ultimately, the people.

But with the best of intentions, of course.

=====

Sarcastic Acronym Hover-Link Footnotes: For the convenience of those readers using devices that lack a mouse, these footnotes are provided for all webpages, in case any webpage contains any hover-links. (If you don't have a mouse, you can't "hover" it over a link without clicking just to see the simple acronym interpretation. Click a footnote link to see the gory details.)

Changes pursuant to changing the website URL
and name from
Thinking Catholic Strategic
Center to
Catholic American Thinker.

Pulled the trigger on the 301 MOVE IT option
June 1, 2014. Working my way through all the webpages. .

Regards,

Vic

Language and Tone Statement

Please note the language and tone of this monitored Website. This is not the place to just stack up vulgar
one-liners and crude rejoinders. While you may support, oppose or
introduce any position or argument, submissions must meet our high Roman Catholic and Constitutional American standards of Truth, logical rigor and civil discourse. We will not
participate in merely trading insults, nor will we tolerate participants merely
trading insults. Participants should not be
thin-skinned or over sensitive to criticism, but should be prepared to
defend their arguments when challenged. If you don’t really have a
coherent argument or counter-argument of your own, sit down and don’t
embarrass yourself. Nonsensical, obscene, blindly & doggedly anti-Catholic, anti-American, immoral or merely insulting submissions will
not be published here. If you have something serious to contribute to
the conversation, be prepared to back it up, keep it clean, keep it civil, and it will be published. We humbly
apologize to all religious conservative thinkers for the need to even say
these things, but the Hard Left is what it always was, the New Leftist Liberals are what they are, and the Internet is what it is.

"Clickbait" advertising links are not acceptable for posting here.

If you fear intolerant Leftist repercussions, do not use your real name and do not include email or any identifying information. Elitist Culturally Marxist Pure Authoritarians cannot and will not tolerate your freedom of speech or any opposition to their rigid authoritarian, anti-equality, anti-life, anti-liberty, anti-property, hedonistic, anti-Constitution, pro-Marxist, pro-Islam, anti-Catholic, anti-Christian, anti-Semitic, anti-male, sexist, pro-homosexual, anti-heterosexual, anti-white, racist, anti-Western, anti-American, Globalist, anti-Nation, blatantly immoral, totally intolerant and bigoted point of view.

This Form cannot be submitted until the missing fields (labelled below in red) have been filled in

ADD COMMENT

Please note that all fields followed by an asterisk must be filled in.

Silence in the face of evil is speaking. "We've had enough of exhortations to be silent!
Cry out with a hundred thousand tongues. I see that the world is rotten
because of silence." Saint Catherine of Siena

“An
error which is not resisted is approved; a truth which is not defended is
suppressed…. He who does not oppose an evident crime is open to the suspicion of
secret complicity.” – Pope Felix III

“Do not forget your purpose and destiny as God's creatures.
What you are in God's sight is what you are and nothing more”—Justice Clarence Thomas

"Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, then, is the sin committed by the person who claims to have a 'right' to persist in evil-in any sin at all-and who thus rejects redemption." Pope Saint John Paul the GreatDOMINUM ET VIVIFICANTEM

"Not to oppose error is to approve it; and not to defend truth is to suppress it, and, indeed, to neglect to confound evil men-when we can do it-is no less a sin than to encourage them." Pope St. Felix III

If a purposeful violator of the Constitution who is a sworn officer of the governemt is not a domestic enemy of America and a traitor, then
there is no such thing, and the Constitution itself is without meaning,
and America has lost its grounding and its very purpose for being. Anti-American-Court

Live Interviews

"All the evils of the world are due to lukewarm Catholics." Pope Pius V

"All the strength of Satan's reign is due to the easygoing weakness of Catholics." Pope St. Pius X

Click the image above topublish your essay or article here,to be included among those below.

Submitted Articles andReprinted Articles

(Note: copyrights on these articles wherever present will supersede the WebSite copyright at the bottom footer of every WebPage)

Still Time To Get It Right. “Once you understand the role of energy in everything, you can begin to appreciate why there's simply nothing more important to get right. Energy is at the root of everything. If you have sufficient energy, anything is possible. But without it, everything grinds to a halt.” Chris Martenson

The Heresy of Chrislam. Those claiming that the “Allah” of Islam’s Qu’ran and Yahweh or God of both the Old and New Testaments of the Bible are one and the same are missing one glaring point: GOD NEVER CONTRADICTS HIMSELF.

Never be lukewarm.Life itself demands passion.He who is indifferent to God has already forfeited his soul.He who is indifferent to politics has already forfeited his liberty.In America, religion is not mere window dressing and citizenship is not a spectator sport.Do not allow our common destiny as a whole people to just happen without your input. Seek the Truth; find the Way; live the Life; please God, and live forever.

NewsletterCatholic American ThinkerFree E-zine Subscription

Email

You will receive immediate email newsletters with links to new articles as they are published here. Your email is perfectly secure here; we use it only to send you theCatholic American ThinkerNewsletterand absolutely nothing else.

"We belong to the Church militant; and She is militant because on earth the powers of darkness are ever restless to encompass Her destruction. Not only in the far-off centuries of the early Church, but down through the ages and in this our day, the enemies of God and Christian civilization make bold to attack the Creator’s supreme dominion and sacrosanct human rights.”--Pope Pius XII

"It is not lawful to take the things of others to give to the poor. It is a sin worthy of punishment, not an act deserving a reward, to give away what belongs to others."--St. Francis of Assisi

Truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance
may deride it, but in the end, there it is.—Winston
Churchill

The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who
deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.—Ayn Rand

Atheist Genesis:

In the beginning there was nothing, and nothing happened to nothing.
And then nothing accidentally exploded and created everything.
And then some bits of everything accidentally encountered other bits of everything and formed some new kinds of everything.
And then some bits of everything accidentally arranged themselves into self-replicating bits of everything.
And then some self-replicating bits of everything accidentally arranged themselves into dinosaurs.
See?

“ … for I have sworn upon
the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind
of man.” wrote Thomas Jefferson in a letter to Dr. Benjamin Rush in
the year of our Lord 1800. The context
involved resistance to any form of Christianity or Deism legally imposing
itself throughout the USA. We must wonder what he might say
about our current government's forced imposition of strict secularism – i.e.,
anti-theism – throughout the USA. I submit that legally enforced secularism of society, like theocracy, like Marxism,
and like Islam, is, precisely, a form of tyranny over the mind of man.Nothing good can come from the religious cleansing of Judaeo-Christian society. Government imposed secularism is just another form of theocracy.